


the gift of living well

by zipadeea



Series: i loved her, instantly [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Babies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Leaves from the vine, Newborn Children, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, zuko is the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22203616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zipadeea/pseuds/zipadeea
Summary: “You are more a puppet of your uncle than ever before. I see your face, but all I ever hear are his words from your mouth.”Zuko smiles wryly. “I take that as a compliment.”***Sometimes Zuko visits his father in prison. Nobody is really sure why.Especially Zuko.
Relationships: Iroh & Izumi (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Izumi & Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: i loved her, instantly [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727605
Comments: 51
Kudos: 965





	the gift of living well

**Author's Note:**

> Just watched Avatar for the first time a few months ago, and wow, I have a new favorite show. It's fantastic. The story! The characters! The relationships! *chef's kiss* nothing can top it. But, like so many others, I love Zuko the best (if you don't love Zuko you are lying) and I have so many thoughts about his life and relationships. I had the idea for this story ages ago, but it took me forever to get around to writing and finishing. Idk how I feel about this now, but I'm just gonna post and run away cuz i don't want it to be for nothing. 
> 
> Soooo, please read and let me know your thoughts! Love you guys <3

“Halt! Who goes there?” Zuko stops his brisk stride, pulling down the hood of his cloak to reveal his face in the flickering torchlight. Both of the guards stationed before him gasp. 

“You--your Majesty!” the older guard recovers quickly, pulling himself to attention. “We were not expecting you this evening.” 

Zuko says nothing, raising one eyebrow in question. 

“Well, with the festival, and the—we figured you wouldn’t--it’s,” the younger guard fumbles, before trailing off. The other nudges him in the shoulder roughly, and he too joins his companion at attention. 

Zuko bites the corner of his lip to keep it from raising. “I’ve been here every solstice for the last ten years. Why wouldn’t I come today?” 

“Because--,” the younger starts, but he’s cut off by a timely elbow to his side. 

“No reason, milord,” the older guard says, returning his elbow to his side and bowing his head, stepping to the left to leave a path open. “We apologize for the interruption. Please proceed.” Zuko nods his head to them both before stepping past and entering the first level of the prison. 

It’s been a year exactly since he last walked the steps, but Zuko’s feet remember the way, automatically passing the wordless guards inside and descending the steps to the underground cell. He takes a deep breath of the cold, damp air around him, bracing himself for the confrontation to come. 

Ten years. Each solstice for ten years, Zuko has been making this trip. 

He recalls, suddenly, that first terrifying solstice as Fire Lord. The guards throughout the prison tower, the phalanx of soldiers stationed surrounding. He remembers pacing tirelessly in front of the cell, shivering with the cold air being pumped inside and the fear encasing his heart like ice. 

Zuko’s friends had been with him that day: Katara, the one shooting the freezing air into the underground jail, Sokka coordinating the guards of the prison. Toph and Suki standing firm with the soldiers in the courtyard. And Aang, right by his side all day long, gray eyes hard and intent on the prisoner before them. 

For there were stories in the Fire Nation, fairy tales really, of the magic of the summer solstice. Stories of babies being blessed by a dragon’s breath, of Agni’s favored completing tasks of superhuman strength and speed, creating flames taller than the highest mountains. 

Tales of a chosen one, the Great Redeemer, being gifted the most powerful spark ever witnessed on the highest and longest day of the year. They are fables of old, legends with no heart in truth. 

But everyone knows them. 

And if ever there was anyone insane enough to think himself the Great Redeemer of the Fire Nation, it was the former Fire Lord. 

So, Zuko had paced that first solstice, golden eye wide and terrified, waiting for the inevitable flame, for the lightning to once again spring forth from Ozai’s long thin hands and burn the other half of Zuko’s face. 

He had paced and waited, Aang stalwart by his side, as his father sat before them and stared menacingly as the sun far above them made its long pass through the sky. 

The flames never came. 

Zuko had returned the next summer solstice alone and unafraid, and saw his father, hair streaked with gray, face wrinkled and gaunt, as though he’d aged a decade instead of just a year. Ozai had been treated well in the year between, Zuko made sure of that; Uncle had convinced him there was no greater punishment for a warmonger than a life of peace. 

As with many things, Uncle was right. 

And so now, Zuko returns to the prison again, an actual decade after the first visit, to find his father a frail old man. The bookcase in the corner of his cell is gathering dust, the hot food on the table before him untouched and lukewarm. Ozai is sitting huddled on the bed, quilt wrapped around his bony shoulders. 

The cell isn’t cold, hasn’t been since that first solstice, when Katara and Aang worked together to continuously push icy air through the vents. Now, a stove in the corner crackles merrily, giving the cell a nearly cozy warmth, fighting off the underground chill. Ozai spends most days simply staring into the flames. 

Or, so Zuko is told during his weekly reports. 

Zuko reaches the bottom of the stairs and immediately goes to the corner, pulling out a worn wooden stool. He drags the stool before the cell and takes his seat, expelling a long, quiet sigh. 

“How goes your era of peace and kindness, Prince Zuko?” his father croaks, not looking up from the flames. Ozai has never called Zuko the Fire Lord, never paid himself or the position the proper respect. 

Calling him a prince is the last great act of defiance left to his father. 

“Well,” Zuko responds simply, resting his folded hands in his lap. “I have great hope for its continuance in the future.” 

“The future,” Ozai scoffs, rolling his eyes. “This is why you will never succeed. There is no future. There is nothing to count on or plan for if your people do not respect you. There is no tomorrow if you do not seize today, if you do not realize the opportunities before you, Zuko. You’ve always been too weak to do what must be done.” 

His tone is nearly reasonable. 

Zuko fights to keep his voice even in response. “There is no true respect born from fear. Only blind obedience.” 

Ozai finally looks up from the flames. Everything about him is dull. “You are more a puppet of your uncle than ever before. I see your face, but all I ever hear are his words from your mouth.” 

Zuko smiles wryly. “I take that as a compliment.” 

A sudden crash echoes throughout the cell as Ozai sweeps the plate of food before him across the table and against the wall. Zuko hears the guards thundering down the stairs behind him at the noise, and rises calmly from his chair, turning back to the door and motioning the panicked soldiers to stand down. 

“Are you all right?” Zuko asks, turning back toward his father to see the man hunched over at his waist, the fallen quilt revealing his skeletal, pale shoulders. Ozai’s hands are on the edge of the table before him in a white-knuckled grip. 

The doctors say he’s dying. That a decade of refusing meals and poor personal hygiene has finally caught up with Ozai, despite their best efforts. 

Zuko wonders if his father is afraid. 

“You will run our great nation into the ground,” Ozai whispers, slumping down onto the bed, ignoring the meat and rice splattered across the wall beside him. His yellow eyes are on the flames of the stove once again. “This is to be my legacy. A traitorous son, a fallen country. I can only hope the world will someday right itself and history will look proudly on the good I tried to spread.” 

It’s a sentiment his father has expressed every time Zuko has come to visit the last decade: a deep and never-ending worry for his legacy. 

He’s never once asked about Azula. 

“Why are you here?” Ozai suddenly asks sharply. “Why have you come again?” 

Zuko shrugs. “I always visit you on the summer solstice.” He says, and receives the gratification of watching his father’s eyes widen in surprise. Zuko wonders how quickly his father imagines the sand is falling through the hourglass. “I wish to know how you’re doing, ensure that you’re treated well.” 

“Ensure that I’m still locked away from the sun.” 

“That, too.” 

They’re both quiet for a bit, Ozai studying the fire. Zuko takes the time to study his father, to watch the man who used to terrify him more than any other thing in the world. His beard is scraggly and unkempt, nearly down to his waist. One of Ozai’s shaking hands runs its fingers through the thing absentmindedly. 

Suddenly disgusted, Zuko looks down at his hand in his lap. 

“I also,” Zuko begins, going off-script from the previous visits, “I wanted to tell you that I forgive you.” Zuko looks up from his hands to see his father staring him in the eye, his golden eyes bright and hard. “I forgive you for the way you treated me, for banishing me and giving me this.” Zuko points to his scar, to the eye he will never see out of again. 

Ozai tilts his head and says nothing, eyes still locked on Zuko’s. Zuko takes it as an invitation to continue. 

“I never understood why you didn’t love me as a child. Now, I know that I will never truly understand. I will never understand you.” Zuko stands and smooths out his robes. “Any man, any parent to whom love is so freely given, who spurns that love in favor of greed and power and corruption, is very sick at heart. You have my pity. And my forgiveness.” 

Zuko stands there for a moment, mouth a hard line. Ozai does not move. 

He does not speak. 

“Goodbye, Father.” Zuko finally says, before forever turning his back on the man around whom his world once revolved. 

He does not know it now, but in a few weeks Ozai will be dead. His words to Zuko are the last he ever speaks. 

000 

Everything is dark and empty when Zuko returns to the palace. Nearly everyone, besides the unlucky guards who drew the short straws, are at the festival, lighting lanterns, eating fire flakes, and readying to dance until sunrise over the caldera, enjoying the third and final night of the Summer Solstice festival. 

Zuko nods and smiles lightly at every guard he passes, his stride quickening the closer he gets to his destination. He feels his smile grow as the door comes into view. 

“Good evening, milord,” Lt. Sakura whispers, a large grin on her face, staring at him from her position before the bedroom door. 

“Are they asleep?” Zuko asks, voice just as soft. 

Lt. Sakura laughs a bit. “Your wife is, sir, but...” she shakes her head and laughs again. “He wanted to be a surprise. Go inside and see for yourself.” She steps away from the door, and Zuko enters. 

His wife is in the bed before him, black hair fanning the pillow under her head as she breathes in a slightly honking manner (“I do NOT snore, Zuko, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, never accuse me of such a horrid thing ever again--”). Zuko reaches her side and brushes the bangs away from her forehead, leaning down to kiss it. She barely stirs. 

It’s understandable. She’s had a very long day. 

The door to the next room is open wide, and through it Zuko hears a familiar voice singing softly. 

“ _Leaves from the vine, falling so slow. Like fragile tiny shells, drifting in the foam..._ ” 

Uncle is sitting in the rocking chair facing the window, his back to the door. It’s the best view of the city, especially tonight with the solstice festival. Already, people are launching their lanterns into the dark sky, lighting up the night like fireflies in the distance. Uncle rocks in time with his song, comforting the tiny bundle in his arms. Zuko leans against the doorframe and listens. 

“-- _Little soldier girl, come marching home. Brave soldier girl, come marching home._ ” Uncle finishes. Zuko sees him reach up a hand to gently swipe the dark patch of hair on his daughter’s head. “There is no need for you to march, though, is there, my dear Izumi? You’ve had a long, tiring journey today, but now, at last, you are home.” 

Uncle leans down and presses a kiss to Izumi’s forehead. Affection for his uncle floods through Zuko, hot and fast, swelling his throat and making his eyes sting. 

“Hello, Nephew,” Uncle says softly, not looking up from the baby’s sweet face. “Izumi and I were just becoming acquainted.” Zuko finally pushes himself off the doorframe and walks into the room, settling himself cross-legged on the floor before the rocking chair. Uncle is smiling widely, eyes bright and happy. His cheeks are covered in tear tracks, a few still slipping into his beard as Zuko watches. 

“We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow at least,” Zuko whispers, leaning forward to trace his pinky up and down Izumi’s arm. When he touches her tiny (such _tiny_ ) fingers, they open up and grip his pinky, and Zuko very nearly gasps. For one so small, she seems so strong. 

“The most effective motivation is the promise of great joy,” Uncle says with a smile, and Zuko can’t help but grin. “You have been blessed, my nephew.” 

“I know,” Zuko says around the lump in his throat, his heart full enough to burst. “I know.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know there are comics from after the series, but I haven't read them, so i'm disregarding anything in them for this story. I have watched about half of Korra, though, so I know Izumi exists, and I'm just running with it. Is Zuko married to Mai, or some other mysterious black haired lady with bangs? Idk I left it ambiguous on purpose. 
> 
> Hope you like the story! Love comments if you feel so inclined. Also, I'm on tumblr now as zipadeea, if you wanna ask me stuff, I guess? idk im still learning. Bye!


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